In addition to Jesse's comments (with which I heartily agree), everyone "assumes" that the world will continue on a  curve of increasing progress, and one that is technology-focussed.

Both are assumptions, and both assumptions do not match with the history of the last 5,000 years.

I have a "mind picture" of the Norsam disks (a) making fine ornaments on the body of a tribal chief, or (b) being thoroughly destroyed as symbols of an evil civilisation.

Science-fiction, you say? Remember Arthur C. Clarke's comment: "any sufficiently-advanced technology appears to be magic." BTW, Clarke originated the concept of satellite navigation and broadcasting.

------Original Message------
From: Jesse Wilkins
To: [log in to unmask]
ReplyTo: Records Management Program
Sent: Apr 12, 2009 09:47
Subject: Re: [RM] Question re Document managemenetsystems for archives

I've mentioned the Rosetta system in several of my digital preservation
presentations. It was developed by Los Alamos National Laboratories and
commercialized(?) by Norsam Technologies. It uses an ion beam to etch data
into the surface of very hard metals such as nickel or titanium. Depending
on how dense the data is written, it can be read using an optical or
electron microscope and claims a lifespan of 2000+ years.
It is being used today in the aforementioned Rosetta project to catalog the
world's languages, particularly those in danger of being lost. But it's
quite expensive and not *really* commercialized in the sense that you will
see it at Best Buy in the foreseeable future. In addition, it's only really
useful for analog - in other words, it's basically super high density
microfilm. The reason, as I've also noted in my presentations, is that media
lifespan is the least of the three major digital preservation issues. The
more pressing issues are hardware obsolescence and software
incompatibility/obsolescence - how would you read what's on that nickel disk
in 2,000 years if it's Word 2007? Word 5? WordStar? Etc.

Cheers,

Jesse Wilkins
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blog: http://informata.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jessewilkins

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